


Becoming Rupert

by tomatopudding



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatopudding/pseuds/tomatopudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What does it take to make everything else not matter?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming Rupert

**Author's Note:**

> This originally started as just a Giles introspective piece, but Xander had a different idea in mind, so I just had to go with it.

He covered them up with sleeves and intelligent words. His body and mind were littered with marks and scars, old cuts and unhealed breaks from years of playing with forces that shouldn’t be tampered with. He hid these marks from his charges, knowing how Willow would worry and Buffy would bite her lip and Xander’s eyes would harden. They cared for him, he knew, even if they didn’t always show it.

Sometimes the old wounds pained him, a twinge in his shoulder, a pain like a punch in the gut. The most recent ones were the most active, the scars from Angelus’ torture still standing out stark white on his skin like seams in his carefully constructed mask. He didn’t like these weaknesses. Obviously, he knew that he wasn’t invincible -- nobody would make that assumption considering how many times he had been knocked unconscious.

Not all wounds are physical, there were parts of himself he knew that he could never get back. The innocence of his childhood as Ru, the shyness of his grade school years as Perry, the rebellious messing with magic and demons that defined the teenaged Ripper -- all of these things were hidden under the carefully created stodgy and proper British facade that was Mr Giles.

A facade he couldn’t afford to let slip, not even for Jenny or Olivia or any of his other lovers during his years in Sunnyhell.

Giles sighed as he settled in the easy chair in his small flat in Bath. He had shed his tweed and pinch-toed shoes and forgone his usual casual attire of denim for flannel pajama bottoms and a worn t-shirt, covered for modesty with a soft blue cotton robe. Not that he was expecting any company, but some thing were now just second nature to him. He had just gotten comfortable with his newest demon tome in hand when a pounding on the door disproved his prediction of a quiet evening alone.

He rose and walked to the door, pulling it open. He drew the robe tighter around himself, as if he was pulling the Giles persona into his body when he saw Xander standing there.

‘Xander.’

He tried to keep too much shock from coloring his voice.

‘I thought you were going to Africa.’

The younger man smiled shyly, rubbing the back of his neck.

‘I just wanted to come say goodbye, I mean, unless it’s a bad time.’

Giles recovered himself, smiling mildly, ‘Yes, of course, would you like some tea?’

Xander agreed and followed Giles to the small kitchenette. They were silent as the water boiled. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but it wasn’t extremely comfortable either. The kettle’s shrill whistle made them both jump. Time was that they could talk for hours about everything and nothing, but that time had passed. Instead, they sat with ceramic mugs of steaming Earl Grey on the table in front of them. Giles curled his hands around the plain blue mug, savoring the warmth, while Xander absently stroked the handle, his remaining eye tracing the grain in the wooden table top.

‘Thank you.’

It was almost too soft to hear and Giles looked up with his eyebrows raised. Xander resolutely kept his gaze downwards.

‘I know we never really said it enough.’

‘What for?’

‘For everything.’

Xander looked up now, hands abandoning the cup in front of him in favor of closing around Giles’ where they were enfolding his own mug. It was a strangely intimate sort of contact and Giles felt a slight heat rise in his cheeks.

‘These past years have been the best and worst of my entire life.’

Giles chuckled dryly

‘So thank you.’

Xander was suddenly much closer that he had been, his eye connected with Giles’, the emotion in it utterly mesmerizing.

It was a chaste kiss at first, a simple press of lips against lips, but even that was too much. Giles was glad he was sitting down because otherwise his knees would have buckled when Xander deepened the kiss. He hadn’t felt so much passion in a lover’s kiss since his college years with Ethan. Yet, this was also so much more than that, years of pent up emotion finally breaking through.

Giles felt everything return to him at once. Ru’s frightened innocence, Perry’s shy sincerity, Ripper’s thrill at punching through boundaries -- it all went into this one kiss, every emotion he had ever hidden emerged. Something about the way Xander’s hands ghosted up his arms to grip his shoulders, rest warmly against the nape of his neck with gentle pressure, it made his blood burn.

He couldn’t tell if the feeling of ecstasy coursing through him was coming from lack of physical contact, a empathetic link to Xander’s desire, or his own hidden desire left to fester for seven long years. At this moment it didn’t matter.

At this moment there was no time for thoughts or contemplation or pretenses. At this moment, he was simply himself, just Rupert with a lap full of Xander and the hot, wet collision of lips and tongues and teeth. It was some time before they broke apart. Xander seemed as surprised as Rupert, his eyes wide and face flushed, lips swollen and red.

‘Oh.’

The word was almost a squeak, the likes of which hadn’t emerged from Rupert’s throat since he had been going through puberty.

‘Maybe I’ll wait a little while before I go to Africa.’

‘I wouldn’t protest.’

Xander chuckled and kissed Rupert again.


End file.
